Certificate:

Director: Roland Emmerich

Release Date: 14 March 2008

Tagline: It takes a hero to change the world.

Main Cast:

Steven Strait … D’Leh

Camilla Belle … Evolet

Cliff Curtis … Tic’Tic

Some films leave you speechless. 10,000 BC is one of those. It’s astonishing. Astonishingly bad, that is.

The acting is terrible and the story is atrocious. There are so many clichés in it that I don’t know where to start. And it’s historically and geographically inaccurate in the most appalling of ways. And then there’s the terrible case of deuce ex machina on at least two occasions. Inexplicably, there are also two attempts at humour. Both are terrible.

Ok… I’ll try and calm my mind enough to write down everything that is wrong with this film.

I’ve already mentioned the acting. And I have a casting issue. This may be nitpicking, but why couldn’t they cast an actress for Evolet that actually had blue eyes? The role isn’t exactly demanding. In fact, I’m sure that a plank of wood could have played this part equally as well. Perhaps all the blue eyed girls had more sense than to get involved in this pile of rubbish.

Basically, the plot is this. A tribe of people in Arctic like conditions are starving because of the lack of woolly mammoths to hunt. That’s how remote they are. They have nothing else to hunt (this is an important point for a geographical farce).

There’s a prophecy that says that a hero and a blue eyed girl will deliver them from starvation or whatever, and will save the tribe. And that’s where Evolet comes in. Some tribesmen find a girl in alone in the Arctic condition mountains wandering around. They take her back to their home, and she has blue eyes. The audience is supposed to thing ‘ooh’ in a knowing sort of way at this. There is a boy in the tribe (D’Leh) that fancies her. He points out a star in the sky and says something sappy like ‘you’ll always be in my heart’ blah, blah, blah.

First cliché… Head tribesman leaves the clan for the greater good and gives the ‘white spear’ to Tic’Tic. Everyone thinks that it was an act of cowardice (he asked Tic’Tic to keep the real reason secret). His son is mocked by his peers, especially one boy. We come to the conclusion of this cliché later in the film.

Second cliché… The mammoths return, and whoever shows the most bravery and brings one down will get the white spear. Needless to say, D’Leh succeeds at this though there was more accident than bravery about it. So he gets the white spear, but can’t take the guilt and gives it back to Tic’Tic.

Whilst this is going on, raiders attack the camp and capture most of the tribe (including Evolet), and one boy’s mother is killed. So, off they go on a trip to save the tribe. The boy wants to go with them but is told to stay behind. So he follows them secretly (yawn).

Now we get the the geographical farce and the first deuce ex machina. After they have trekked over the mountains they come to lush forestation. And then they suddenly appear in Africa, and not northern Africa either. Strangely enough, head tribesman of the Africans speaks the same language. Aparrantly, there was a man who came over the mountains and taught them. How fortunate that D’Leh and his cronies run into the same tribe as his father did.

D’Leh manages to amass a bit of a fighting force helped by the…

…Third cliché. D’Leh saves a sabre toothed tiger from certain death. The tiger turns up at a tribe that D’Leh is with, and all is spared because the tiger recognises D’Leh. And what would you know – this tribe has a prophecy that a tamer of a ‘spear tooth’ will deliver them from whatever. By now I couldn’t have cared less.

So, on they trek after the captives. D’Leh gets a bit downhearted as they have lost the trail, but on of these stupid prophecies mentions something about a light or whatever, and D’Leh suddenly remembers his star, and that leads them to Evolet and the other captives (very vomit inducing). Somehow, they have been forced into slavery building the pyramids! Not only is Egypt in north Africa, but the pyramids were not built in 10,000 B.C. And they are shown as being built all together. They weren’t. And I guess this is where they ran out of money, because it isn’t the Pharaoh Kufu (his tomb was the ‘Great Pyramid) in charge, it’s some made up person called the Pyramid God.

Now to deuce ex machina number two and yet another prophecy (I had a prophecy too – that this film would be utter shit). In the slave camp which has ben infiltrated by D’Leh, there is some weird blind man whom they keep in a hole underground. He makes an appearance to look at Evolet’s hand, sees some scars and rambles on about another prophecy. I’m not sure what this one is about, as I had lost the will to live by then.

Needless to say, they slaves revolt, D’Leh gets the white spear, and all turns out just peachy in the end, although we do have a pretence at an unhappy ending, but good old shameness ‘old mother’ from D’Leh’s tribe saves us from bawling our eyes out. I still felt like crying though (with pain).

If you like cliché ridden piles of rubbish then you’ll love 10,000 B.C. If not, then you are better off driving nails into your arms.

Rating: (for the woolly mammoths)